


take me back in time to love you

by justwantedtodance



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Apotheosis, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Not Canon Compliant, Porn with Feelings, Romance, Smut, Unrequited Love, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:54:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22357492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwantedtodance/pseuds/justwantedtodance
Summary: "She’s leaning against the bar, unaware of how beautiful and goddamn sexy she looks, and Paul wrestles with himself. Should he say something? Should he run for the hills? How do you approach someone who you haven’t seen or heard from in almost 10 years?" This is a story of two teens in love pulled apart, only to reconnect in their late 20s. Spoilers (?) for "Black Friday" if you squint.
Relationships: Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 14
Kudos: 40





	take me back in time to love you

**Author's Note:**

> As I was saying, spoilers (?) for "Black Friday" because the title of this gives away a song title, and when I started writing this, I realized how similar it was to a storyline in BF. If you know, you know. Or you will know in February!
> 
> Enjoy!

Paul did not want to show up tonight. In fact, it’s the absolute last thing he wants to do only above getting deployed again. He knows going into tonight, people would be smothering him with questions he’d rather not discuss, and the only person from high school he really kept contact with was Bill. Of course, Bill had to stay home with his daughter, Alice, for the night since he couldn’t find a sitter, so Paul is left to brave the piranha-infested waters of Hatchetfield’s only bar doggy-paddling alongside his high school classmates hungry for answers about the last 10 years.

He came back after five of those years but kept a low profile, opting for a nice, quiet desk job to occupy his time. After everything he knew was blown apart, he needed to restructure and form a routine; a simple one with little room for error. So, he clocked in at 9:00 AM and out at 5:00 PM with a break for afternoon coffee, black, at 2:30, made himself dinner with the TV on low in the background, read a chapter of a book before bed, and woke up to do it again the next day. He liked simple. It meant he couldn’t mess it up.

Once in a while, he’d go to the bar with Bill, only have a beer or two even though Bill would always be the designated driver. They’d catch up on life but would avoid the sensitive subjects, namely the war and Bill’s divorce.

Paul likes his life. He’s never been one to want extravagant things, so his life is just about as perfect as it can get for him. And that’s exactly how he’s choosing to frame his narrative for his classmates. Naturally, just when he has his routine damn near scientific, something has to come in to disrupt it. Better yet, some _one_.

When she enters the bar, she steals all the air in the room with her.

Her hair is darker than it was 10 years ago, maybe a little shorter too. But she’s still the same height, though those black ripped jeans make her legs look a thousand miles longer. She never wore much makeup in school, but now, she’s learned her way around an eyeshadow palette and a stick of eyeliner that gives her a sultry, mysterious look. Not that she’s planning to impress anyone this evening, but it does give her a confidence boost walking in facing her classmates from this deadbeat town she wanted nothing more than to escape from and never return. If she had to come back, at least she’d do it in style.

Emma Perkins left Hatchetfield at 18 a broken-hearted young girl. She came back at 28 a bit jaded but a lot tougher, a woman ready to face the world instead of running from it.

“Hey, could I get a Jack and Coke,” she asks the bartender. Jack and Coke was always her drink of choice, even back then. She’s leaning against the bar, unaware of how beautiful and goddamn sexy she looks, and Paul wrestles with himself. Should he say something? Should he run for the hills? How do you approach someone who you haven’t seen or heard from in almost 10 years?

Emma turns around and does that job for him. “P-Paul?”

* * *

She’s transported back in time to the summer before she turned 18 where it’s just she and Paul at the Davidson’s ice cream stand, windows rolled down as they sit together in the back seat of his Nissan Sentra stealing ice-cold kisses from each other while they race to finish their cones before the leather gets a taste. They had just come back from a drive down to the lake, and even though they didn’t smell all that great, neither of them cared. The sun began to set, but they continued to spend the day together driving around into the night reminiscing about high school and singing until their throats hurt.

He pulled off of the highway and made love to her in the moonlight. Soft and slow and gentle, Paul wanted to remember that moment for a lifetime. He treasured that memory but not the aftermath. As he lay with her between his legs in the backseat, he dreaded to say what he knew he needed to.

“Emma, I have to tell you something.”

Softly, she responded. “Okay, what is it?”

Paul swallowed the lump in his throat and barely choked out his next fateful words. “I’ve been drafted.”

Emma’s grip on his arms around her waist instantly tightened. Her heart raced inside her chest, but she tried not to show it. “Oh. Okay. Wh-when do you ship out?”

An even larger lump formed, and his heart plummeted into his stomach. “Next week.”

Emma began to cry, loud and unabashed, and he couldn’t help but feel the shame rising in his bones. He waited so damn long to tell her because he feared this exact reaction from her. She turned around and curled into his lap, hugging his neck and refusing to let go, and Paul held onto her shaking body as she cried and whispered devotions of love to her all the while.

He knew the dangers, he knew the risks, and he certainly knew the possibility that he may not come out of this war alive. What pained him the most wasn’t the intense training or the fear of foreign powers; it was letting go of his one true love.

In this time before the days of digitally mediated communication, he could certainly write to her, but there was no guarantee that she’d ever see those letters. Even more importantly, Paul didn’t want to give her hope that he would return soon or even as the same person as when he left. False hope is unbearable, and having gone through it with his own father, he couldn’t bear to do that to someone he loved. So, because he loved her, he had to let her go.

Emma was devastated for weeks once word came that Paul left for Afghanistan. She sat in her bedroom worried sick; she couldn’t eat, could barely sleep, and when any news reports came from overseas, she listened day in and day out. Tossing and turning in her sleep with nightmares of the horrors she saw and heard imagining the man she loved as the star of her bad dreams. She was living in a prison of her own making. Until one day, she grew so mad with the news incessantly talking about the war that she decided to escape from it.

It’s what drove her to the airport on her 18th birthday to buy a one-way ticket to Guatemala. Away from civilization, away from shitty cable news, and far, far away from Paul Matthews.

She hacked every memory of him out in the jungle as she backpacked through the rain forests and found solace in solitude for a while.

Being alone somehow intensifies your every thought, so when Emma nearly went insane from having so much time to think, she decided to try somewhere more crowded and packed her few belongings on a flight to Spain.

Those years of high school Spanish helped exceedingly well getting her started, but eventually, her vocabulary improved as well as her outlook on life. Empanadas and a whole lot of tequila certainly helped that. She seemed to forget the last year or so and focused on living in the moment instead of pining for some preposterous past that would never come back and wouldn’t mean a thing down the line.

* * *

It almost worked until her past damn near slammed into her at the bar at their high school reunion 10 years later.

The war changed him but not beyond repair. Paul wasn’t out on the front lines for very long, so he didn’t witness as much of the trauma as others he had come to know, but working intelligence certainly deepened the lines in his face from late nights awake furrowing his brow at the computer screens. He returned with a bit more muscle having finally grown into his teenage lanky build, and he kept his hair shorter now. Being more reserved proved to be to his benefit since he retreated from society the first years back, and no one seemed to notice.

But the one thing that never changed about him was his eyes.

Even through death and grief and combat, his eyes never lost that electric blue hue that sparkled in the light. Those eyes that Emma spent so long dreaming about looking into one last time to tell him she loved him. The eyes that never failed to light up any room, and the eyes that left her speechless when she finally saw him once again.

“Emma,” he breathes, a relieved but dumbstruck sigh. 10 years later, she’s even more beautiful than the last time he saw her, and while the woman in front of him is no longer the 17 year-old he knew and loved, she’s familiar and foreign but so damn beautiful.

Okay, they’ve acknowledged each other. No take backs. But now what?

Logically, Emma should establish that wall. She should guard her heart and not get swept up in imagining that the man in front of her is the same man that left her all those years ago. He left just like all the others, and every sane neuron in her brain compels her to push back, maintain classmate-appropriate distance, and do not board the Heartbreak Express.

But hearts are a funny thing. They make you do shit you’d never rationally tell yourself to do but you somehow end up doing anyway. Her heart and her impulse control are weak enough to launch herself at him, wrapping him in a bone-crushing hug, to embrace the feeling of love once lost but found again. His hug never changed; it’s still the same comforting presence she remembered from years ago that she ached to feel on the loneliest nights.

Paul immediately hugs her back, the softness of her welcoming. 10 years is a long time, but it feels like no time has passed at all. He’s missed her so intensely, thought of her every day while he was away, and he only hopes that she feels the same. She left too, and he assumes after the last night they spent together that she fled in anger and heartbreak wanting nothing to do with him ever again.

“I’ve missed you, Paul,” she whispers into his neck, rising on her toes to reach him.

He assumed wrong. “God, I missed you too, Em.”

She pulls back with a smile and cautiously takes one of his hands in hers. After using her nickname, she’s suddenly girlishly nervous, and now she understands how he felt when he asked her out all those years ago. “Do you, umm, maybe wanna get out of here? Catch up somewhere away from our shitty classmates?”

Did she just read his mind? “I would love nothing more,” he says, trying hard not to show his relief as they leave the bar hand in hand for the short drive back to his place.

Paul leads her inside his apartment with a humble smile. “Wow, so this is the Paul Matthews bachelor pad,” she muses as she looks around at the decór. When Paul doesn’t respond right away, she turns to face him, flustered. “Oh, sorry, are you…?”

He looks confused until she wiggles the fingers of her left hand. “Oh, no. No, I am definitely a bachelor. Hatchetfield has been, uh, a bit of a desert, if you know what I mean.”

“Totally. Me too, by the way.”

“Here, let’s sit down.” Paul takes a seat on the couch next to Emma before popping up to go to the kitchen. “Oh, do you want anything to drink?”

“Just some water would be great. Thanks, Paul.”

“Of course,” he calls back. “So, are you just back for the reunion, or are you back for a while?”

He comes back with two glasses of water and hands one to her as he returns to his place next to her. “Well, I guess a while, unfortunately. Umm, you remember my sister Jane, right?” Paul nods with a smile. “She, umm, she was in an accident over Christmas, so I’ve actually been back for the last few months, just laying low though. Figuring shit out.”

His face instantly blanches, and he sets his glass down on the coffee table. “Oh, Emma, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, you didn’t crash into her car. Anyway, we didn’t come here to talk about sad stuff. How have _you_ been? This place is amazing, how long have you been back?”

“Five years, weird as it is. It’s hard to believe so much time has gone by. Has it really been 10 years since prom and graduation and _Brigadoon_?”

“Ugh, I could live without you resurfacing that memory, thanks,” Emma groans, shoving his shoulder.

“Oh, come on, you were great! I mean, maybe your accent could have used a little work, but hey, it’s better than what I would have done.” Emma jokingly rolls her eyes and smiles, looking down at her hands. 

She pulls her lip into her mouth, and Paul falls for her all over again. Well, fuck, he’s completely helpless around her. Goes to show in 10 years, some things never change.

He reaches for her hand across the couch, and she looks up at him with a soft smile. “Hey, I’m really glad you came tonight. You saved me from drinking alone. You remember Bill, right?” She nods. “Well, he’s got a kid now, a great kid, but he was at home with her tonight, and I kind of lost touch with everyone else from school.”

Emma scoots closer to Paul, though she makes a move so small he doesn’t notice it in his nervous rambling. She can practically feel his hand sweating in hers.

Paul continues. “I know it’s stupid, but I had hoped you would be there. You know I never liked these things, not that you did either, but you always made them better, and while I doubted that you’d come or, hell, that you were even here—“

Emma stuns him silent when she tilts her head up and kisses his cheek. It’s brief and fleeting, but she couldn’t hold back any longer. His eyes widen at her boldness, though he knows it’s not entirely out of character. Just surprised him is all. After all, a lot can change in 10 years.

“Sorry, was that…?”

“Y-yeah. Yeah, all good,” he stammers. Seems he’s not grown out of being flustered when receiving female attention.

Emma closes the rest of the gap between them and takes a breath before speaking. “You’re right, I do hate these things. Small talk and false pleasantries are my two weakest events, as you know,” she jokes, and Paul laughs with her. “But I had hoped you’d be there too. I always hated this fucking town, but … there were some bright spots.” She looks up at him and squeezes his hand.

Paul takes a shaky breath. “Emma, I’m sorry. For having to leave and—“

“Hey, duty calls. Seriously, no hard feelings.”

“No, but I broke your heart. And I still feel guilty about it because I shouldn’t have just left you like that. I should have told you sooner or promised to stay in touch or just done something because my biggest regret is letting you go.”

“Paul, it’s okay.” He’s frantically chasing tears from his eyes. God, he didn’t mean to do this in front of her, but Emma smiles at him in that beautiful luminous way and takes both of his hands. “You leaving meant I got to leave too. You wouldn’t believe the places I’ve been. Guatemala, Brazil, Australia, I even lived in Spain for a while like I always said I wanted to. And I needed that, to get out of Hatchetfield and see the world. Sure, I was heartbroken for a _really_ long time, but I learned about myself and how strong I can be.”

“I never doubted you were. All those jerks in school, they were wrong about you. When they called you weak and broken and worthless compared to your sister because you are strong and smart and so, so beautiful.” She looks at him with wide eyes, tears threatening to leak at his heartfelt speech. He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, cupping her cheek in his palm. “God, you’re even more beautiful than I remember.”

Emma smiles and rests her hand on his shoulder. They’ve both changed, they’ve both grown, but the feelings they get when they look into each other’s eyes has remained the same.

It isn’t clear who leans in first, but in a flash of a moment, they’re kissing each other, and it feels like coming home. They take it slow, not wanting to rush the rediscovery of each other. Paul’s hand finds its familiar place in the waves of her hair while hers wind around his neck, pulling him closer. Eventually, she slides into his lap, her legs on either side of his as their kiss grows more passionate.

“Paul,” she breathes, her voice thick with arousal.

“Is this okay?”

“More than. Are you good?”

“Absolutely.” He lets his other hand slip down to her waist as she goes back in for another kiss. “I’ve missed you so much, Emma.”

“Missed me or missed this,” she smirks as she reaches down towards his belt.

He brings his mouth to the side of her neck and nibbles a path to her ear. Emma sighs and shifts further onto his lap. “What if I said both?”

“Then I’d say I sure as shit hope you did.”

He laughs and captures her lips again. “Hey Em, can we take this slow?” Emma’s heart begins to race, fearing the worst, and she starts to move away from him before he grabs her waist and readjusts her position on his legs. “No, no, I didn’t mean like that. I want this. Like more than you possibly know. I just… I don’t want to rush.”

“Awww, no midnight rendezvous to hurry off to,” she teases.

“Shut up.” They kiss once more, and this time, Paul stands up, lifting her up with him, Emma giggling against his mouth.

He sets her down in his bedroom still kissing her even as they start to undress each other. They’re methodical, like they’re trying to memorize one another and rediscover the places they’ve missed after a while away. He reacquaints himself with the freckles on her arms after shedding her jacket, and she rises up on her toes to fit her mouth against his neck once his collar is loose enough. Emma starts to undo the buttons on his shirt when Paul’s hands fly up to her wrists. She gasps, breaking their kiss.

“Sorry, should I not have…?”

“No, it’s fine. There’s just, umm… well, I have some… scars. And I don’t want to freak you out or anything—”

Emma cuts him off with a kiss and smiles up at him. “It’s okay, Paul. Promise. Are you okay?” He nods, rubbing her shoulders in reassurance.

She notices his breathing speeds up and can tell he must be nervous about exposing his scars to her. So, she takes it slow, just like he wants, unbuttoning each one with care. When she untucks and opens his shirt, Emma gently runs her fingers across the planes of his chest. He was right about having scars, quite a few of them, but she’s not freaked out in the slightest. She trails her index finger over the longer ones on either side of his chest, and Paul’s breath quivers as she touches him.

Her lips touch a particularly deep scar on the right side of his chest that makes him reach out and tighten his grip on her shoulders. “Emma…”

“Is this alright,” she whispers. 

Paul nods, and Emma’s lips continue the line up his chest until she moves back to his mouth. Pushing the shirt completely off his shoulders, he grows hungry to see her too and leads her backwards to his bed. Apparently, it’s exactly what she wants too; her tank top flies over her head in a matter of seconds, and she lies flat, bringing Paul with her.

“Wait,” he breathes, pulling away slightly. Emma looks up at him curiously and sits up with him. “No, lay down. I want to look at you.”

She’s retained many of her girlish features, namely her short stature and youthful glow in her cheeks, but now, he’s staring down at the young woman of his dreams. He’s spent years imagining what it would be like to be with her for one more night, one more kiss, one more touch. Now, she’s here. And she’s stunned him speechless.

His hand traces her ribs down the soft curve of her waist to the band of her jeans and stops at her hip, his thumb rubbing over the jutting bone. “You’re so gorgeous, Emma.”

She smiles at him, her eyes sparkling with his compliment. Eyes silently asking for permission, Paul slides his hand to the button and zip on her jeans, and she nods in acknowledgment. He makes quick work of her pants and shoes, tossing them aside, but when he comes back up on the bed, he takes notice of her left leg, and his heart clenches.

“Em…”

“You’re not the only one of us with scars, Matthews.”

A deep gash spans the most prominent part of her left thigh right where a pair of shorts would hit. He pets the area around it, careful in case it might be tender. “What happened?”

“Another story for another time.” She kisses him again and notices that he doesn’t seem convinced she’ll actually open up about it. “I promise I’ll tell you, but right now, I don’t want to think about that.”

“Well, what _do_ you want to think about?”

She grins and pulls his face down to hers. “Give you one guess.” They kiss, their tongues the primary players this time, and Emma’s hand tangles in Paul’s soft hair. Sure, there isn’t as much to cling to these days, but she’ll take what she can get.

He’s gentle with her like he always was as he eases a finger inside of her, and her body arches into him begging for more. Actively, he listens to her sounds of pleasure, tunes himself to hear what she likes more or less, and pays attention to how she reacts. Emma loves long, deep touches from what he can tell in the feline way she sighs and swivels her body into his touch when he adds a second finger. She falls apart in minutes, his name a raspy exhale on her lips.

Emma litters his cheeks with kisses before Paul reaches over to his nightstand and fishes a condom out of his drawer before lying next to her on the bed.

“Do you still want this,” he asks, suddenly unsure of himself. She reassures him with a kind sweep of her fingers through his hair and a gentle press of her lips to his. In the midst of their kiss, Paul doesn’t realize she’s swiped the condom from his fingers and is rolling on top of him to start working his pants off.

She’s halfway done with opening his pants when she reaches down and cups him, feeling the hardness he’s been hiding. Insurmountably pleased, Emma breaks her mouth away laughing low as she whispers in his ear, “You remember how this works, right, Matthews?”

“I’d say you’re doing a pretty good job at refreshing my memory.” He gasps when Emma’s hand sneaks beneath his underwear and finally grasps him. “Emma, please.”

“Ready for me already,” she asks teasingly.

“Aren’t you?”

It’s been a while for her too, probably not as long as him from the looks of it, but she’s definitely not gotten any action in a while, and god knows she needs this as much as he does. “Touché.”

Paul kisses her and slips his own pants off while she unwraps the condom. If nothing else, they’ve retained their efficiency from their youth, and it serves them well after both falling victim to dry spells. Emma straddles his hips and rolls it on before lining herself up with him and sinking down.

Her body feels like heaven; warm, slick heaven. It takes an immense amount of self-control for Paul not to completely lose himself in the first minute of being inside of her, but she just feels so damn good, and it’s been too long since he’s experienced anything remotely close to the beauty of her in years. His eyes screwed shut like Emma’s, he lets out a long sound of pleasure, followed by her name on a string when she starts to move on top of him.

“Emma, oh fuck. You’re incredible.” She smiles, and he clings to her, wrapping his arms around her waist as he meets her thrusts in the middle. “C’mon baby, come for me.”

She moans in pleasure, her pitch steadily rising, and finds her release quickly. Paul is anxious to come but waits until she does before he lets go, spanning his hands wide across her back.

Their heart rates begin to slow as they lie still together capturing the moment in full. After a few moments, Emma eases herself off of Paul and scoots up on his torso to reach his mouth to kiss him. He moans in her mouth and rubs the back of her neck.

“Gotta let me up, Em,” he says reluctantly, knowing full well that the last thing he wants is to leave Emma’s embrace to clean them up. She groans and rolls on her side away from him before she pulls the covers up to her chin to keep herself warm. Paul kisses her temple as he stands up. “I’ll be right back.”

Cuddly and sated, Emma smiles and shuffles further into the bed. For the first time in quite a while, she feels… alive. Being with Paul, not just sexually, wakes something up inside of her, makes her feel things, things she had been numb to for so long. Joy, laughter, lightness, ease. Love. After all this time, after all the shitty years apart, her feelings for him still haven’t changed, and she tears up at the epiphany.

Which is the exact moment Paul walks back in with a glass of water, and his heart drops into his stomach.

Quickly, he sets the glass down and crawls back in bed beside her. “Oh god, Emma, I’m so sorry. What did I do? Are you regretting this?”

She shakes her head insistently. “No, no, I could never regret that. It’s just… I didn’t expect this to happen, but it’s like nothing’s changed. And that makes me really happy.”

“I didn’t expect this either. Really, I didn’t. But I’m glad you’re here, and I’m glad this happened.”

“Me too,” Emma whispers, tilting her head up for a kiss. Paul leans in and gives her all the love his heart can muster through his kiss. 

10 years of “I love you.” 10 years of “Good morning, beautiful.” 10 years of “You’re never too much and always enough.” Finally, he can say what he’s been longing to for so long.

Emma curls into his chest and drifts off to sleep in his arms before too long when he starts stroking her hair. Something he retained from their days in high school: she hated being touched by anyone who wasn’t Paul or Jane. And she loved being held like this, someone warm petting her hair or her back always helped her relax. But she’d fiercely deny it to anyone who asked or offered.

She stirs a little later in the night and catches a glimpse of the clock on Paul’s nightstand, wincing at the red numbers blinding her. When she looks up, he’s looking down at her still playing with her hair between his fingers like before. Emma squints and mumbles, “It’s like 2:00 AM, go back to sleep.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

He sighs and pulls her closer. “It’s just hard to believe that you’re here right now. After I left, I thought I’d never see you again, but you’re here. Unless this is some crazy dream and I’m hallucinating or something.”

Emma laughs. “No, I’m here. I’m not a ghost or anything, I promise.”

“Ok, good because that would make what we did a few hours ago really weird.”

She rolls her eyes playfully and pushes weakly at his chest. “You’re still weird as ever.”

“And you’re still the love of my life.” Emma doesn’t process his words at first, but when they finally sink in, she looks up at Paul in surprise. “You know that, right?”

A soft smile spreads across her face. Verbal confirmation that negates the deepest fears she didn’t want to tell herself makes her heart swell. “And sappy too.” She kisses his cheek with a smile. “Don’t worry, I love it. And I still love you just as much, Paul Matthews.”

“And I love you immeasurably, Emma Perkins.” She sighs and lays her head back on his chest to let his heartbeat lull her back to sleep. He kisses her forehead, staring at her a few moments longer before closing his own eyes and finding true rest for the first time in so long.

He knows it was a mistake to let her go the first time, but it might be fate’s will that they would find each other again. Paul swears to himself now that Emma’s here, he’ll never let her go.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this romantic dramatic AU, and come flail with me on Tumblr @justwanted2dance if you ever wanna talk about Starkid or Crazy-Ex Girlfriend or anything really! 😊


End file.
